


When the Sun Goes Down

by Teriyakinoodles



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fluff, He's working on them, Kylo Ren Has Issues, somewhat slow burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-20
Updated: 2018-08-20
Packaged: 2019-06-30 05:55:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15745629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teriyakinoodles/pseuds/Teriyakinoodles
Summary: Ben Solo is starting his life anew in England after running away from his problems. He channels his aggression and anxiety into his art, working under his pseudonym Kylo Ren. He meets Rey, a small countryside café waitress who has a knack for reading him like a book and being the only person in his life who actually might understand him. He's enamoured, but it's okay, he'll probably mess it all up eventually.





	When the Sun Goes Down

**Author's Note:**

> This fic will have lots of humour, fluff, character development, self-analysis from our favourite emo Ben Solo, sassy comments from a feisty Rey, eventual discussion of difficult childhoods, and, once our love bugs get properly involved, as much porn as I can fit in-between. Enjoy!

Chapter 1

 

The door chimed its high-pitched jingle, ringing through the almost-empty café. No heads turned his way, he supposed that was a plus. The few patrons that visited here this early were too engrossed in their respective lives, eyes down and focused on newspapers or phones, hands eagerly clutching the coffee that they needed to get through their morning. He supposed he was no different, except there was an added bonus in coming to this particular café, one that made him walk the extra 10 minutes.

He pulled his hood down, dampened from the rain that beat against the pavement outside, and rubbed his boots against the worn welcome mat at the door. Pushing his hair out of his eyes, and biting his lip nervously, he approached the counter to order his usual.

There she was, as he knew she would be on a Monday at 7am, stood with her back to him, stocking the back shelf with the various pastries and sweets that their later-morning rush would demand.

He could have cleared his throat, made his presence known, she clearly hadn’t heard the bell above the door that announced his entry. He could be polite and get her attention, but instead he chose to take the opportunity to admire her form from behind, a view that he doesn’t often get. His roving eyes scoured her figure like a man seeing sunlight for the first time, catching on her nipped waist and flared hips, until his nerves got the better of him and he returned to biting his lower lip and fumbling to get his wallet out of his jacket pocket.

His clumsy fingers dropped the wallet, the slapping of the leather on the café counter making the woman turn around and finally notice his presence.

“Oh! I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you come in”, she hastily set down the pack of cookies she was clutching in her hand, mid re-stock, and stepped closer to him, looking him up and down in an almost imperceptible once-over.

“Your usual, Ben?”

“Yes please, Rey.”

She smiled her default, beaming grin, before turning away again and preparing his preferred drink.

He watched silently, fleeting glances tracking her movements before dropping his eyes back to his nervously twisting fingers. Despite how he remained in a constant state of anxiety around her, she never seemed to be uncomfortable under his gaze.

“Here you go, darling”, she pushed his cardboard cup of milky tea over to him, steam escaping from the hole in the lid out into the cold air of the café.

Ben felt his blush rise immediately at the term of endearment, even though he knew that was her usual phrase to all the customers. Head down, in an attempt to hide his red cheeks, he passed along the correct change, mumbling thanks, before taking his usual window seat.

His chair back was pressed against the far corner of the room, angled towards a small round table at the window, giving him the perfect view of both the counter, where Rey usually stood, and the narrow countryside street that the small café was on, lined with small shops and eateries.

As the rain grew heavier and pounded against the glass windows, wind roughly blowing red and brown leaves up against shop doors and parked cars, he sipped his hot tea and let his gaze wander back over to Rey, where she had returned to re-stocking the shelves.

He’d been frequenting this café every weekday morning for the last six months, and while he had no office job and no nine-to-five schedule that gave him a real reason to need shop-bought caffeine at 7am, he found himself returning day after day just to get a glimpse of her.

It wasn’t stalkerish. Much. He never followed her, he reasoned. He just happened to repeatedly visit her place of work for no reason other than to see her. He inwardly grimaced, taking another sip of his drink to hide the downturn of his lips. He didn’t like reflecting on his odd habits, and the way his life had turned upside down in the last year.

He had gone from living in a high-rise, New York penthouse, working all hours of the day under his tyrant of a boss, scamming people out of money on Wall Street, to living in a tiny, isolated countryside cottage in England, getting rid of his pent-up energy in the form of the art that he creates and sells under his pseudonym, Kylo Ren.

Ben liked it here, he reasoned. His parents lived close by, which is why he chose this small village when he decided to relocate over three-thousand miles away from his boss, essentially just running away from his problems and bad choices. He didn’t want to be too close to his parents. His relationship with them, even after the last year of building bridges, was strained, to say the least. But it was nice knowing they weren’t half a world away. It helped to ground him when he spent too long in his angry persona of Kylo Ren, violently hashing away at canvases with big globs of red paint in the dead of night.

Lately, however, he found another thing to ground him in those moments, to bring him back to reality, back to being Ben. He finished off his tea, now only lukewarm, and let his eyes scan over Rey one last time for today. He didn’t know her all that well. He knew that she studied mechanics through an online university, and that she had a fat ginger cat that didn’t like his diet food, but that was all information volunteered through her own friendly comments. He barely worked up the courage to talk to her aside from just giving her his order.

But when he was in one of his rare moods, where his confident, aggressive side came out while he’d been painting as Kylo Ren throughout the night and lingered on into morning, he sometimes found the courage to try to be a little more charming.

It was during these moments that he got his first glimpses into who she was, aside from Rey the Waitress. Ben learnt, first and foremost, that he was a goner. Maybe he’d fallen in love with her the moment he first saw her, maybe it was a slow and gradual slide into infatuation. Either way, he knew that he’d continue to visit this café every morning, until he either found the courage to ask her out, or she found another job.

Given his track record with women, his money was on the latter.

He stood, stretching his long legs as he tossed his empty cup into the bin and zipped his jacket back up, pulling the hood up over his messy hair.

He cast one last look over to Rey, now serving another customer. God, her smile cut through him like the best kind of knife. As he turned and pushed the door open, he heard a “bye, Ben!” that made him blush deeply and be thankful his now-red ears were hidden under his hood. He waved a goodbye back, not trusting his voice, and promised himself that the resulting smile she gave him would be burnt into his brain until the day he died.

\--

Tuesday morning. 6:45am. He hadn’t slept last night. He’d created three more pieces that he was sure some important millionaire would think was worth hanging in a gallery in some other equally important city. He didn’t care. He created his art to express himself. The fact that he happened to be good at it and some assholes back in America happened to want to buy it online for a hefty amount was inconsequential.

He played along, updating his blog with pictures of his work and accepted whatever the first offer was that came in. He already had more than enough in his bank account to last him a lifetime of not working, thanks to his misdeeds at Wall Street, but he sold his work just to get them out of his house. Once his rage was done, he hated looking at the evidence of his aggression. At first, he’d just burn them in his back garden, but before long, his neighbours began complaining about the smoke to the local council, who quickly put a stop to that practice.

So here he was. He hastily checked his phone. 6:50am. He stuffed it back in his pocket and drew his hood up further to block out the rain. Did it ever stop fucking raining in this place?

He huffed impatiently, peering around the CLOSED sign on the café door, and saw Rey walking swiftly towards him, apron on and hair already falling out of her messy bun. She unlocked the door, gesturing him inside before quickly closing it again to protect her from the onslaught of rain. She flipped the sign over to OPEN before making her way back behind the counter to take her first order of the day.

“You’re early, rough night?” She ventured, a small smile on her beautiful face.

“Hm.” _Just say it just fucking go for it, what’s the worst that can happen-_ “It would have been much better with you there,” _s_ _hit, that sounded so stupid why did I just say that, why did I just fucking-_

Her laugh washed over him in a wave of pure sunshine, and he fought down his creeping blush and gave in to the side of him that took stupid chances like this. It didn’t happen all too often. He bravely met her eyes, feeling emboldened by her response and the adrenaline still pumping through his veins from his long night of letting go and giving in to his dark side.

Her gaze raked over his form, no doubt taking in his darker attire, his paint splattered t-shirt and his cocky posture – a far cry from his usual shy wallflower self.

“Your usual, Kylo?” Rey smiled her beautiful grin.

He nodded and hummed his approval, a smirk playing on his lips while she turned to begin making his drink.

He didn’t know why he was so comfortable with this, someone being able to read him so well, to know when his mood had slipped into something darker. Hell, he didn’t know why she even played along and humoured his strange ways. A traitorous voice in the back of his mind said she was clearly poking fun at him, messing with the creep that couldn’t stop visiting her café. A nicer, more hopeful voice suggested that maybe she was just his soulmate and understood him where no one else could.

It all began a week after he’d started visiting the café. He’d arrived early. It didn’t make a difference when he hadn’t slept anyway. He’d been up all night slashing canvas after canvas with blood red paint, fighting an uncontrollable urge to suddenly sling yellow pigment against the harsh backdrop. The light against the darkness. He couldn’t understand why. His mood had always matched angry reds, stormy greys and melancholy blacks.

His confusion had turned to more anger as he ravaged through his cupboards, not a yellow to be found. Of course, there fucking wasn’t, he was Kylo Ren. Kylo fucking Ren didn’t paint with any colour that could be misconstrued to represent happiness of any sort.

He’d been enraged. Pillaging his acrylic supply and even taking a knife to his paintings, hating the way they mocked him with their darkness. Where had this come from? In the almost-half-a-year he’d been in this new godforsaken place, hiding from his past, he’d always found solace in his moody paintings. What had changed? What had unwittingly introduced a new light into his life?

 _Rey_ , he let out an animalistic growl and returned to shredding his paintings, the thick canvas material coating the floor around him, leaving splotchy red marks against the scratched dark wood floor. This infatuation with her had gone too far, he’d only known her a fucking week and she was worming his way into his every unconscious thought, like a parasite.

He’d stormed over to the café once he’d noticed the cold light of dawn trickling in through the dark curtains. He’d show her. He’d show her what he really was, it would scare her away. She’d never smile at him again, never bless him with the sight of her beautiful dimples, they’d ban him from the café for being too fucking monstrous, and he’d move on with his life.

That day, he’d gotten to the café well before opening, and seethed silently leant against the door until he saw a familiar face approaching him from within.

Rey beamed at him, unperturbed by his scowl, and went behind the counter to take his order, as she had done all that week since the day he met her.

“Your usual, Ben?” She asked, reaching for a cardboard cup.

“Kylo.” He corrected. Might as well get it over with. Let her see what a freak he actually is when he’s not in here stuttering and blushing over her like a schoolgirl with a crush.

“Sorry?” Her hand stilled over the cup, but she didn’t look put out, just curious.

He steeled his nerves, dropping his eyes before meeting her gaze again, “it’s Kylo today.”

She smirked then, not unkindly, and his heart clenched in anticipation, “just today?”

He was stunned, his eyes widening comically. He was sure she’d think him a freak. Ask him why he was so unusual, maybe accuse him of having a personality disorder. Instead she’d just taken it in stride, being her usual trademark cheery self.

“Uh…yeah, just today, I think. Who knows, really, what the future holds”, damn he sounded like such an idiot.

She laughed then, “well, Kylo, it’s nice to meet you. Even if it’s just for one day. What’ll it be?”

Now, six months later, he was stood in the same spot, lost in his thoughts of her, a habit of his to pass the time. The subject of his muse cleared her throat, holding out his cup to him and breaking him from his reverie.

“Black coffee, no sugar, just how you like it, Kylo”, she smiled a toothy grin his way.

He took it from her with a genuine smile, loving the way her brown eyes caught on his lips as he did so. He felt a warmth in his cheeks but ignored it; he didn’t blush nearly as much on days like this, where his confidence and adrenaline were still running high from the night before.

“So,” she leant her elbows on the counter after putting away his cash in the register. He took up his favourite corner spot a few steps away, the small café allowing him to still hear her low voice even as he reclined in his seat, legs spread, and right foot slung comfortably over his left knee.

“What have you been painting this time?” She teased. She knew him well enough by now to know that teasing was a fairly safe game on days like this, where he was less likely to spontaneously combust from nerves and blooming blushes.

“Ah,” he looked down at his paint-splattered shirt, globs of yellow standing out in harsh contrast against the black material, “the sun.”

“Oh, how lovely,” she cast a longing glance out through the window, where the gloomy morning clouds were covering the slowly rising sun. She met his eyes again, with a smirk he had come to know signalled the precedent to a teasing remark, “any _Rey’s_ of sunshine on that painting of yours?”

He met her playful eyes with his own intense stare, “yes.” He said shortly, understanding her double meaning. He watched as her breath caught, and she tugged at her lower lip with white teeth, her eyes warred with his own as he silently observed her coming to some kind of decision, before she drew in a breath –

“Even better. You’ll have to show me these elusive paintings in person, one day.”

He almost lost his cool. Ben Solo almost peeked out from under the mask of confidence, and if he were not so surprised by the turn in conversation, he could have stopped to think about how his attitude when he was Kylo somewhat mirrored that of his father – charming and aloof, yet all rough around the edges where Han was smooth, and all shouting and throwing where Han was blasé – but that would be a psychoanalysis topic for another day, for now, his thoughts were entirely wrapped up in Rey, who was quite clearly waiting for his reaction with bated breath and a slight dusting of pink on the high of her cheeks.

“Oh, I don’t know”, he said, and if the tone of his voice weren’t so teasing Rey would have looked away bashfully, but as it was, he continued, her eyes never leaving his, “it’s a great honour to see my paintings in the flesh, I hear.”

She snorted back a laugh at this piece of information and he raised his eyebrow in playful offence, “I’m being utterly serious, the list of people who are invited into my studio makes for a very exclusive club, there’s actually only one member in it,” he gestured to himself.

At this she downright laughed, but he noticed that her gaze was downcast and the pink flush on her cheeks hadn’t lessened. He cut the teasing slightly, not wanting her to think he was brushing off her surprising comment. Even if she was only joking, he wasn’t about to let this opportunity go to waste.

“So, I don’t know, this seems like a pretty one-sided deal to me, Rey, what’s in it for me?” He smirked as her blush deepened, liking how the tables had turned. It was usually him reduced to a red-faced mess before her, and he was fighting to stay in control of his confidence before it unavoidably ebbed away and took its silver tongue with it.

“I’m sure it could be worth your while, but who knows, it depends how much I like your paintings. I’ve never seen your work before. You could finger paint with your eyes closed, for all I know,” she laughed, looking pleased with herself that, after all these months of small talk and slowly cracking his shell, she was making progress.

He chuckled, but as he felt the sweat beading on his palms and his heart rate rising, he knew he was fighting against the clock. His aggression, confidence and self-assured personality of the previous night was waning. He could hear the whispers in the back of his mind that maybe, just maybe, she was leading him on in some secret, cruel joke. He knew he needed to make it official, to turn her teases into reality and invite her around, he’d surely never get the fucking chance again if he messed this up – but he wasn’t this forward now, not since starting his therapy in the UK and slowly conditioning himself not to be so fucking aggressive all the time, what would he say, what would he do, what if she just fucking decided he was no good-

“Give me your phone, then.” She broke him out of his thoughts, which he realised with a start were rapidly spiralling into a place of anxious self-depreciation that was usually reserved for Ben and not Kylo.

He dug in his pocket and handed it over wordlessly, not understanding the shift in conversation and still trying to silence his screaming inner monologue of low self-esteem.

She tapped something in and handed it back.

“Call me when it’s a good time for me to be initiated into the exclusive group of people invited to your studio,” she gave him a soft smile, her fingers brushed against his as he took his phone, and the skin there tingled as he pushed it back into his pocket with a shy smile.

“I will,” he promised, finally feeling that tell-tale blush creeping up his neck. Ah well, he’d made it further than he usual does before he lost his nerve.

The bell over the door chimed, announcing a new customer and breaking the spell that had washed over them. He drained his cup and stood from his chair, her eyes still on him as he made his way towards the door, fidgeting nervously with his jacket sleeves.

“Bye, Ben,” there was the soft, understanding smile again, reserved only for him, and his insides twisted as he fought back his own stupid grin and mumbled his goodbyes before pushing open the door.

As the door closed behind him he heard her professional, cheery tone return as she took the new customers’ orders. He started walking back home, the early morning sky now brighter, and surprisingly, he thought, matching his change in mood.

He didn’t know what secret good deed he had done in life or which god he had to thank for bringing her to him, but as he slowly walked down the winding country lanes back to his cottage, he felt incredibly lucky that there was someone willing to get to know him, who seemed to understand his strange ways and accepted his undesirable traits.

A grim smile graced his lips. She didn’t know him _too_ well, so far. He was sure he’d find some way to fuck things up before long. But until then, he thought, he’d try to enjoy it while it lasted. Whatever _it_ turned out to be.

**Author's Note:**

> Please review, I'd love to know your thoughts!


End file.
